Bye-bye, Elon.
Elon Musk appeared destined to quit running Twitter Monday after more than 10 million users voted for him to step down less than two months after he bought the social media platform for $44 billion.
The Tesla mogul had polled users late Sunday, asking if he should step down as head of Twitter and vowing to abide by the results of this poll.
Voting ended just before 6:20 a.m. ET with 57.5% choosing for him to leave.
With more than 17.5 million voting in the online poll, that meantmore than10 million users wanted to see Twitter no longer be run by the world’s second-richest man.
Musk did not immediately comment on the polls results. But hed earlier insisted that no one was lined up to replace him.
No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor, he tweeted after warning users to be careful what you wish, as you might get it. Elon Musk vowed to “abide by the results of this poll.”Niviere David/Abaca/Sipa USA
“The question is not finding a CEO, the question is finding a CEO who can keep Twitter alive,” he also wrote ominously.
When podcaster Lex Fridman offered to take the job, Musk warned: You must like pain a lot.
He added: You have to invest your life savings in Twitter and it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since May. Still want the job? The poll ended with 57.5% voting for him to step down.Twitter/@elonmusk
Fridman — who offered to run the site for free to “focus on great engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world” — was not the only one showing interest in the long-hours gig.
Rapper Snoop Dogg also polled his 20.8 million followers, asking “Should I run Twitter” — with 81.7% of the more than a million voting wanting him as the new boss.
Musk — who was in Qatar to watch the World Cup final Sunday — took over as “Chief Twit” after ousting former CEO Parag Agrawal shortly after he acquired the social media giant in late October. Elon Musk said Twitter has been in “the fast lane to bankruptcy.”Dan Mullan/Getty Images
It started a radical period of change at the site, with the new boss firing around half the company’s staff and exposing backroom goings-on at the site, including bowing to federal pressure and the old leadership’s censorship of The Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
He had continued clashing with users on multiple fronts up until his poll Sunday, including over the suspensions of a number of journalists as well as a policy update that prohibited content that contains links or usernames for rival platforms. Keep up with today's most important news
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Minutes before his poll, Musk apologized and tweeted, “Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes.”
That promise soon led to the poll about his leadership, which for many followers appeared to come out of nowhere.
However, Musk told a Delaware court last month that he would reduce his time at Twitter and eventually find a new leader to run the company.
Shares in Tesla were initially up more than 4% in pre-market US trading Monday as investors closely watched the results of the poll.
The electric carmaker’s shares have fallen almost 60% this year, with investors increasingly concerned about Musk being distracted and the slowing global economy.
He has also cashed out nearly $40 billion of his Tesla shares over the past year, including big chunks of stock since buying Twitter in October.
“Given how much of a distraction Musks tenure at Twitter has become, shareholders in the electric vehicle manufacturer will be breathing a big sigh of relief if he steps back from Twitter and gets back to the day job at Tesla,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
With Post wires
